After the first few jumps and earning some money by charting out solar systems, I returned to one of the space stations for some upgrades to my ship. There was a tough decision to make: my money would buy me one of the more minor upgrade but after that, I would either have to earn more money first… or sell my second ship, an Eagle fighter.
Upgrading the Power Distributor
After doing some research, the primary items to upgrade first seem to be the Power Distributor, the Weapons, the Power Plant and possibly the Frameshift Drive.
One of the things currently annoying me during exploration flights is the occasional intercept with the following combat: my lasers are too quickly drained – I can keep my opponent in the sights much longer than I can fire on him. So my first attempt is exchanging the Power Distributor with a better one.
The original Class 1E unit is replaced with a Class 1B unit. It is heavier but it features roughly 33% more reserves across the board. The next combat will show if that makes a difference.
Selling my Eagle
I am a pre-order player so I got myself a free Eagle. But in all honesty: focusing on two ships and upgrading both of them plus the fact that you have to be in the same station with both ships to actually switch makes me think I am better off with one ship plus the money for the other one. So I decided to sell the Eagle as I am more into exploration than bounty hunting – so I need the Sidewinder. Plus: the Eagle sells for about 40.000 credits.
Upgrade to my Lasers
Only upgrading the power distribution and power plant did not make much of a difference – the limiting factor in the occasional fight were the two pulse lasers. Now, I have made some money on exploration data and got myself two Beam Lasers. I decided for fixed ones as I am a dogfight guy and did not want to run into trouble with my gimbaled lasers to be thrown off by chaff…
Those are not the most potent weapons but surely an upgrade to the default ones – given that I am more into exploration than into fighting, they should be sufficient for the occasional intercept. Which I did not have to wait for for too long…
The two beams did actually cut through the shields and the hull of that Viper like a knife through butter… I would not necessarily go “hunting” with them but in self defense… they did work for me. Maybe not against a human player but hey, I keep as much money in the pocket to be able to re-buy my ship should I be blown to pieces…